Computer programs that talk to people
aren’t new. The natural language processing program ELIZA
,
which played the role of a digital psychologist, first debuted way back in 1966. This
early chatbot was capable of “listening” to you as you shared your life story, delivering
mostly coherent, yet vague canned responses to whatever you typed in.

But chatbots have come a long way since
then. Many in the current generation are equipped with artificial intelligence
(AI), making them more powerful than ever. And today, chatbots are used by
organizations to listen to and respond to requests, find the answers to commonly
asked questions, or even help you order a pizza.

Meanwhile, on our devices you can ask intelligent
assistants, such as Apple Siri or Microsoft Cortana, to help you set up events
in your calendar, dictate emails, play from millions of songs, turn off the
lights, and more. And the more we talk to them, the better intelligent assistants
get at understanding and serving us, thanks to AI. This technology is becoming commonplace in our
homes, on our phones, and even in our vehicles. But what about in the
workplace?

We wondered how AI chatbots and intelligent
assistants are being employed in businesses today and what remaining challenges
prevent some companies from using these technologies. To find out, we surveyed more than 500
IT pros in organizations across North America and Europe to get a better idea
of how AI-enabled chatbots and intelligent assistants are being used in the
business environment.

Forty percent of large businesses expect
to implement AI chatbots or intelligent assistants by 2019

Overall, 29 percent of organizations
have implemented one or more AI chatbots / intelligent assistants for
work-related tasks or plan to implement them in the next 12 months. However, adoption
is much higher in large organizations that may have more resources to evaluate
emerging technologies. In fact, 24 percent of large businesses with more than 500
employees have already implemented one or more AI chatbot or intelligent assistant on
corporate devices, and an additional 16 percent plan to adopt them in the next
12 months.

Among small and mid-size businesses,
approximately 15 percent of organizations have implemented one or more AI
chatbot or intelligent assistant on corporate-owned devices, and an additional
10 percent plan to do so in the next 12 months.

Microsoft Cortana is the most commonly
used intelligent assistant in the workplace

Across all company sizes, Microsoft
Cortana is the most popular intelligent assistant in the workplace. Among
organizations that have implemented intelligent assistants or AI chatbots for
work-related tasks, 49 percent are using Microsoft Cortana, which is integrated
into Windows 10, and 47 percent are using Apple Siri, which is integrated into
iOS and macOS. Additionally, 23 percent of organizations have implemented
Google Assistant, which is available on various OSes and was formerly known as
Google Now.

Despite the buzz around Amazon Alexa, it
seems to have more usage among consumers … at least for now. Among companies currently
using AI chatbots or assistants, only 13 percent are using Amazon Alexa.
However, an additional 15 percent of organizations expect to implement it in
the next 12 months, so adoption levels might catch up with those of Google Assistant over
the next year.

Operating systems aren’t the only
software titles that are integrated with AI chatbots or assistants. According
to the data, 14 percent of organizations are using AI chatbots integrated into collaboration
tools, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, and another 16 percent of
organizations plan to use chatbots integrated into collaboration tools in the
next 12 months.

Despite buzz about companies creating
their own custom AI chatbots, as of now, only 2 percent of organizations have
done so. However, 10 percent of organizations said they plan to implement a
custom AI chatbot in the next 12 months.

How AI chatbot and intelligent assistants are used in the workplace

AI chatbots and assistants are
versatile software programs — but which use cases make the most sense for
businesses? Among companies currently using intelligent assistants or AI
chatbots, 46 percent use them for voice to text dictation, while 26 percent have
tapped them to support team collaboration tasks, and 24 percent are using them
for employee calendar management. Fourteen percent of businesses are using intelligent
assistants/chatbots for customer service purposes, and 13 percent are using
them to assist with IT help desk management tasks.

Among organizations using AI chatbots
or intelligent assistants, the results show 53 percent are using them within their
IT department, likely because IT pros are typically early adopters and may be
testing the technologies before rolling them out to end users. Additionally, 23 percent of
organizations are using them in their administrative department, 20 percent are
using them in their customer service department, and 16 percent are using AI
chatbots or intelligent assistants in their sales and marketing departments.

AI chatbots and intelligent assistants aren’t
perfect

As cool as chatbots are, the technology
is still far from perfect. Companies using AI chatbots/intelligent assistants
see a lot of room for improvement. In fact, 59 percent said the technologies have
misunderstood the nuances of human dialogue, while 30 percent reported they executed
inaccurate commands and 29 percent reported difficulty understanding accents.
Additionally, 23 percent of organizations have found that intelligent
assistants can’t distinguish the “owner’s” voice from others, which can be a
problem in a crowded work environment.

Organizations that have not yet adopted
AI chatbots or intelligent assistants also explained why they’ve held off. Among
these organizations, 50 percent said they haven’t adopted them due to a lack of
use cases, while 29 percent cite security/privacy concerns, and 25 percent said
the cost of AI chatbots / intelligent assistants is holding them back. In
addition, 19 percent of organizations who don’t use them are concerned about this
technology distracting employees to the detriment of user productivity.

Most IT pros believe AI will help automate mundane tasks

Intelligent assistants and chatbots make
use of AI, but the bigger picture has more advanced forms of AI doing more than answering questions or
helping you with common tasks. There’s no shortage of articles about AI-enabled
technologies, which talk about self-learning software or intelligent robots replacing human workers
in the near future. But IT professionals who participated in our survey are
mostly unconcerned.

While 40 percent of IT professionals said that AI can replace entry-level jobs that don’t
require human creativity, they feel relatively secure when it comes to their
own jobs. Perhaps because of the nature of IT work, which often revolves
around debugging issues that involve complex overlapping systems, they
don’t think a computer can fill their shoes. Only 17 percent of IT pros believe
AI will put their jobs at risk.

“Honestly, I'm not too worried about
IT pros when it comes to AI. Outside of a chatbot asking, ‘Have you tried
turning it off and on again?’ most of our job involves a lot of creative
problem-solving and thinking outside the box.” — Spiceworks user Arthur Maloney

In fact, many survey respondents see the
emergence of AI as a positive force: 76 percent of IT pros believe AI will
automate mundane tasks, allowing for more time to focus on strategic IT
initiatives. And on average, IT pros believe 19 percent of their current daily
tasks can be automated via AI and intelligent automation.

So perhaps a self-learning machine can
replace a factory worker who performs repetitive tasks all day, while a self-driving
car might even replace a taxi driver one day. But the world has yet to meet a
robot that can physically walk to someone’s desk, determine the exact reason why a
computer won’t boot, then physically replace the faulty memory that’s causing
the problem.

Many companies lack the skills and resources to manage AI technology

As AI advances and becomes more
commonplace, many organizations may not be ready to take advantage of the technology.
According to our data, only 20 percent of IT pros believe their organization
has the skills, talent, and resources necessary to implement and support AI.

Additionally, AI is not something upper
management is thinking about at this time. Only 5 percent of IT pros believe
their organization values AI skillsets and experience when making hiring
decisions. Additionally, only three percent of organizations have a policy in place
on how to use intelligent assistants, chatbots, or other forms of AI, and just one percent of organizations offer employee training on how to use AI in the
workplace.

The road forward with AI

How much budget organizations allot towards
a technology often indicates how important they think it will be in the near
future. Our results show that roughly one-quarter of the organizations expect
to invest in AI technology in 2018. Breaking that number down, 18 percent of
organizations plan to spend $10,000 or less on AI tech in 2018, while only 7
percent intend to spend more than $10,000. The figures are slightly higher
among large businesses, with 10 percent planning to spend more than $10,000.

But in general, 60 percent of
organizations aren’t planning to invest in AI tech in 2018, which may be
explained by the fact that technologies, such as intelligent assistants and
chatbots, can be integrated into existing devices, OSes, and services that
organizations are already using. Other organizations might not think they can
benefit from using AI at the present time.

“The only thing I could see our
company using AI for is data analytics for pattern recognition and such. But
that can be said of almost any company that has any amount of data.”
—Spiceworks user Patrick Mikszta

In
conclusion, while AI has the potential to alter our lives dramatically, the
technology is still in its infancy. Intelligent assistant / AI chatbot adoption
is clearly on the rise, but we don’t yet have more advanced forms of AI such as
fully functioning self-driving cars, robot butlers, or even computers that can
pass the Turing test. That day might come one day in the near future, but many
IT pros think it will still take a little while for AI to live up to its full
promise.

Methodology

The Spiceworks survey was conducted in
March 2018 and included 529 respondents from North America and Europe.
Respondents are among the millions of IT professionals in Spiceworks and
represent a variety of company sizes, including small-to-medium-sized
businesses and enterprises. Respondents come from a variety of industries,
including manufacturing, healthcare, nonprofits, education, government, and
finance.

I read an article about an I.T. Dept that started using AI to manage their ticket queue. Although they never revealed any information on what they are using, the article got me thinking about this. I am 1 of 2 in my companies I.T. Dept (which use to consist of 3 and at one time had 4). We have a very heavy workload and having the ability of using such a resource would certainly help bring our workload to a more manageable level. I'm looking at the possibility of having the AI establish first response, very basic triage (or more specifically basic information gathering) and ticket assignment (getting the ticket to the right person). My expectations might be set high, but if you don't shoot for the moon, you'll never hit it!I've been doing lots of research online and am just now starting to enter the planning phase. We of course use Spiceworks for our Ticketing system, inventory control and Server/network monitoring, and I'm curious if any of my fellow SpiceHeads have, or are planning to incorporate something similar. I would love to chat, pick your brain, and share some of my thoughts on the matter. I'm particularly interested in what you're planing to use (or what you have already tried).

I was just reading this article and I noticed your comment. And I couldn't help but get excited because we just launched our new product Luma, that acts as a level 0 agent that performs basic triage, customer follow-ups, ticket assignment, and escalation. I think Luma might be what you are looking for. Please give us a look (Serviceaide), Or just comment back I would love to hear your thoughts.

Our company has adopted a chatbot for customer services and sourcing for 3 months. Basically we made use of our FAQ as a base to map out the answers to respond via Chatbot. We will need to keep managing the new questions we received daily and inputting into the Chatbot system manually so to "feed to grow" it. I wonder if it is just a data mapping technique instead of AI. Any comments to my query? Thanks.